ost - OS Templates

What is ost?

ost is a simple yet powerful tool providing mechanisms to automatically audit, maintain and backup systems customizations. It is particularly well suited to environments where most systems are similarly configured, but will operate just as well if each system is unique.

ost uses at least one of the following two sets of input:

the system's file catalog if one exists
user defined "templates" to override the system's catalog

These allow ost to build a virtual image of what the local filesystem is supposed to look like. This image is then compared to the actual state of the local filesystem to obtain the following information about the system:

List of intact files
List of modified files
List of missing files
List of additional files

The above is then used to perform one or more actions:

Write up an easy to parse (by humans or scripts) report.
Automatically update and/or delete files according to configuration.
Backup modified and added files.
Run script(s) based on which file(s) ost updated and/or deleted.
When properly configured, ost can be used instead of "real" backups of the entire system root drive (which is mostly what you get on the CD from your vendor!).